The present invention relates generally to a process of rating pipe segments within a water distribution and transmission system (hereinafter a water distribution system), and more particularly to an automated system of rating pipe segments based on the analysis of data relating to maintenance tasks and inspections performed on components of the water distribution system stored within an electronic database.
Operators of water distribution systems, such as water utilities, generate tremendous amounts of data regarding the operation of their water distribution systems. For example, a typical water distribution system can consist of over 1,300 miles of pipe segments as well as more than 5,600 hydrants. In any given year, over 9,000 different maintenance tasks may be performed on the pipes segments and hydrants in the distribution system and each of the hydrants may also be inspected during that year.
Currently, however, the operators cannot and do not take advantage of the tremendously valuable data that can be generated from the maintenance tasks and inspections performed on the water distribution system. First, the practice among operators today is to keep manual records. Such record keeping makes it laborious and inefficient to maintain and analyze maintenance and inspection data to rate pipe segments. In particular, capital budgets for the replacement of pipe segments within a particular distribution system presently are not quantitatively or qualitatively evaluated to determine the segments that impacted operations from an array of perspectives due to the magnitude of the data retrieval, correlation, assessment and prioritization task that would be required in such an analysis.
Additionally, the use of manual record keeping makes it extremely difficult for operators to use hydrant inspection data in the rating of pipe segments. For example, there is a present inability to correlate factors such as inadequate hydrant capacities and hydrant chlorine residuals that are below range to a particular pipe segment.
There is thus a need for an automated system for rating pipe segments based upon a quantitative and qualitative analysis of maintenance and inspection data stored in an electronic database to determine the presence of water quality factors and service interruption factors such as, for example, the history of pipe segment breaks, the material of construction of pipe segments, the size of pipe segments, the total time of shut down for repairs, the total number of customers affected and related hydrant performance for a pipe segment.
There are no known processes that allow operators of water distribution systems to analyze and quantify the reliability of pipe segments within a water distribution system at any point in time by querying data stored in an electronic database gathered from maintenance tasks and inspections performed on the pipe segments and hydrants within the water distribution system. The present invention provides such a process.